On 2012-03-26, Gour wrote:

> I'm considering which markup to use for our open-source project to write
> user's manuals as well as for general writing (study notes etc.)

I recommend to use Docutils_ for single documents (study notes etc.) and
Sphinx for projects (web sites, software documentation). (Sphinx builds on
Docutils, both use reStructuredText_ as markup language.)

.. _Docutils: http://www.docutils.sf.net
.. _reStructuredText: http://docutils.sf.net/docs/ref/rst/restructuredtext.html

> I've played with AsciiDoc  for a few days and I like its HTML output as
> well as PDF generated via dblatex.

> However, having the need to use different symbols like planet's signs
> etc. I had some problems finding Unicode fonts having all the required
> glyphs and wondered how to easily use 'standard' Unicode font for normal
> text and then switch to the specific font containing all the required
> glyphs for rendering planet symbols.

> In AsciiDoc I use something like:

>:sun: ☉
>:moon: ☽ etc. which are then used as {sun} in the text.

On the input side, reStructuredText allows both, direct input as Unicode
character as well as via substitution definitions like ::

  .. |copy| unicode:: 0xA9 .. copyright sign

  Copyright |copy| 2012

> Now I wonder if reST/sphinx provides some simpler method of using
> specific font for rendering planet's symbols and the regular font for
> the rest?

> I mean simpler than the need to fiddle with XSL stylesheets to configure
> Docbook toolchain (dblatex) to render stuff as desired?

> Let me say that we are on Linux platform and mostly care for HTML/PDF
> outputs.

This depends on your understanding of "simpler": 

PDF output requires configuring LaTeX via packages and preamble code. The
details depend ou your choice between traditional 8-bit TeX and XeTeX or
LuaTeX as back-end.

HTML output should work out of the box with a modern browser that does
the font substitution automatically.

Günter

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